This is it, the last weekend hurrah before back to school.

I know the calendar claims that Jan. 1 is the beginning of the New Year, but for me, the beginning of the school year is the real new leaf that I turn over. Just like all the typical traditions that accompany the New Year’s celebration, like leaving money outside the door, or eating pork and sauerkraut, I have my own superstitions that I need to make sure are followed so that we get the year off to a good start.One duck that I’ve got to get in a row is my house. I’ve got to start the school year off with a really clean house. I am under the firm belief that whatever state my house is in at the beginning of the school year is the path that the rest of the school year will take.Of course, I haven’t been willing to take a chance and see what happens to the school year if we start off with a messy house, and by the end of week one, everything is back in a shambles again anyway, but at least for 24 hours, I feel like I’ve got things under control.With three kids, a husband, a cat and an on-the-go lifestyle, at times it feels like our house is more of a rest stop than a home. This summer, the kids had some opportunities to attend a variety of day camps, which was great for keeping them busy, but not so great as it meant the influx of “projects” didn’t stop when school ended.The summer library program was also good for at least one new objet d’art every week, too. As the kids have gotten older, sports seasons have gotten longer, which meant that this year, baseball overlapped with swimming, which overlapped with soccer, which led to a giant pile of smelly sports equipment scattered all over my car and the house. I’m afraid that by the end of summer, my house was not only a cluttered, disorganized mess, but it was also verging on filthy.We all buckled down last weekend and in between soccer games, we managed to get the house mostly scrubbed down. At least the cat is not threatened by the dust bunnies anymore.House cleaning with the kids these days is an exercise in beating my head against the wall. While I want them to learn how to clean, I also need the satisfaction of knowing things are “really” clean and I am constantly having to fight with myself not to give in and just do everything myself.At the same time, after making them scrub a toilet for the third time, because it’s not quite up to my standards, I do get a little worried that one of them may toss a toilet brush in my direction. Speaking of brushes, back to school is my cue to replace everyone’s toothbrush.About an hour after I tossed the old ones, G came to find me and told me he had some bad news for me. “Mom, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your toothbrush fell into the garbage can,” he said. I’m trying not to care too much that he had no problem at all with his being in there, too.Over the course of my actual career, I have had some workplace-specific training in how to create and organize workspaces intelligently. The biggest take-away is “a place for everything and everything in its place.”I’ve tried to implement simple systems for the kids, like a drawer for T-shirts, a drawer for underwear, a drawer for socks. I’ve also tried to set up a system where the order of the drawers matches how you get dressed. The top drawer is for underwear. The next drawer for shirts, the final drawer for bottoms.The kids regularly manage to thwart my plans by just dumping one whole pile of laundry into one drawer. I’ve tried to point out that the “it’s easier that way” mentality they have while doing the dumping is defeated by the fact that they can’t find a particular shirt when they want it because they’ve dumped it in the pajama drawer (which is conveniently, intelligently, located in the drawer under their bed!), but this is a lesson they are reluctant to learn.They may have gotten a good lesson in just how dangerous their lack of attention to detail can be, though.Last week, G just grabbed a pile of what he thought was his soccer uniform and tossed it in his drawer. This week, he paid the price. First of all, he and A both had games at the same time at different fields, so this required some finagling and planning on our part to get everyone where they needed to be.All of us were in the car ready to go, except for G. I went back inside to see what was holding him up and was met with wailing. Turns out, he actually grabbed E’s shorts instead of his. Being a girl, and quite a bit smaller than he is, well, those shorts were more than a little snug. However, he wasn’t about to admit to me that he couldn’t find his own uniform, so he went ahead and squeezed into her shorts. Things really took a turn for the worse when he had to contort himself to try to get into his shin guards and cleats. Another lesson, hopefully learned.At any rate, school uniforms are ironed, backpacks are full of fresh supplies, and for about 24 hours, the house is neat and clean and we are all ready for another adventure to start. Happy New Year!Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.